She's got my number I must confess, one look in her eyes and I feel undressed, she can see right through all my little games, she's got my number she's got my name. Late night *FZZK* The power button on the radio was punched suddenly by one white finger. Normally Rio liked to work out to music, but tonight all the songs just seemed to piss him off. Love songs, breakup songs, the badger song! Couldn't they play something else on that stupid station?!

The Holy Sword of Mukaru was currently doing an upside down stand on the pole in his lair, holding himself verticle using just his lower legs, letting his arms and long violet hair fall to the floor gracefully. He sighed and curled up the pole, grasping the spot above his feet firmly, before lowering himself down as smooth and slow as molassass on a cold day. He wasn't a warrior...he was a cleric of Sunei, the goddess of love, beauty, and hedonism and exotic dancing was the only workout he could stomach. The elf leaned down to pick up his towel and took a glance out the window. It was late...possibly midnight, and all he saw were the stars out past the hazy mists that surrounded the city. The magical domes that surrounded the inner city cast a faintly red glow on the sky, making it seem purple to him.

Rio strode over to his dressing table while drying his hair, and grabbed the first atomizer he felt and sprayed the perfume into the air. It wasn't the rose water he'd been expecting...instead it was that rich frankensense, cinnamon, and cloves scent that Bryan always wore. That brought back painful memories, even more than the events of the past few days. Not only was his city being terrorized by bizzare alien creatures impervious to magic, but when his ex showed up at his door step with his new love in tow, things just went from bad to worse. He sat down heavily on the velvet covered stool and put his head in his hands. In the other room, his keen hearing could pick up the delicate voice of a young girl jabbering on and on...it was that Jessi kid. Thank go she would be out of his hair in the morning! And then...over it all...

"Jessi, do me a favor....and go to bed! We're tired, I've been drivin' all day..and did your cat just growl at me?!" That voice was a slightly rough tenor; Bryan. Rio would always recognize that voice, the musical way it sounded when its owner was telling a story...the whispers at night. It hurt to hear him talking to someone else. In the 60 years they'd been appart, Bryan had changed. Must be his half kitsune blood Rio thought, glancing darkly at the door that sepparated his living quarters from the main area where he held meetings, had meditiations, and conducted business. He knew right now that Bryan would be holding that bloody alien girl in his arms on his futon, letting her kiss him and maybe even....he didn't want to think about it. It was bad enough that Crescendo was a girl; HIS Bryan with a girl, now that was hard enough to ponder. Brainwashing must have been involved. But the very fact that she wasn't an elf...or any sort of local creature, but instead, a strange mixture of biomechanics, and nano technology. She wasn't even human and that would have been bad enough! A Cleric of Sunei with an imperfect hybrid creature like that....blasphemy!! And she was so...so...plain, even for a human looking creature. "No fashion sense either", he scoffed.

"Bryan...." there was the delicate birdlike voice of Crescendo with her strange clipped accent. "Are...are you still awake?" Rio dug his perfectly manicured nails into his palm and restrained himself from shouting "Well if he answers NO DUH you stupid git!" at the wall. Instead he started to pace, remembering the past when that would have been him in bed there asking his love those stupid questions in the dark. It was bad enough that Bryan's father, Elhaz of Eidios has taken young Aspen B. Nightstalker away from the temple and away from Rio, but to have him return with someone else....his heart hurt horribly.

"Yeah baby...I'm awake...." He sounded extremely tired. "What is it?"
There was a slight pause, Rio stopped, straining to hear, and leaned against the door. "I'm sorry about today, I, well I overreacted." That was that damn female again. Rio was sure that she was spooning with him about now, pressing those soft round breasts into his back and letting her hands stroke along his stomach.
"Anybody would have...it's ok. It's human, I can't blame you....I was shocked myself, I never would have thought he still carried a torch for me sixty years later."
"Bryan, do uh, you still um, have feelings about him?" Rio opened the door a bit and snuck into the room to hide behind the big bamboo screen on that side of the room. He could hear them, and see them now and a quick Prescense Mask spell made sure they didn't know he was there.

Bryan paused, Rio saw him look out into the dark of the room. He knew that those Kitsune halfbreed eyes could see heat in the dark..he was aways bloody annoying to play hide and go seek with. Thank goodness this enchantment makes me impossible to detect, even for him. Rio thought, waiting for the reply.
"I did. But those were feelings for the old Rio...back when he was innocent, back before...back before he joined with the sword. It's as if what was pure and loving has been stripped out of him by that damn thing! I had feelings for someone who no longer exists." He finished finally, his knuckles white gripping the futon in the dark. "I was a fool to think that he would be the same boy I once knew."
Cress sat up, the covers falling down to her waist, and leaned over her lover, holding back a little whimper. Rio saw that she was wearing one of Bryan's button up shirts and judging by the way it hugged her bust line and the view he got of her hip, nothing under it.
"Things change and so do people. It's over now, and now you've got me, and I've got you. Tho sometimes...I really doubt that I deserve you. You're so sweet to me, you put up with my paranoid crap...something I wouldn't force on anybody." Her soft voice cracked and Rio felt a wave of joy at her misfortune. "I wouldn't blame you for breaking up with me, over the way I've been acting since we got here....doubting your feelings for me and pushing you away. I'm sor--"

Her appoligy was cut short by a long passionate kiss from Bryan who had suddenly pulled her down on top of him by the front of her shirt. Rio noticed that she looked shocked, Repressed little virgin, I bet she doesn't even touch herself! Rio thought scathingly to himself, frowning so hard he was sure he'd get wrinkles. He felt hot with anger and panic. It didn't matter to him that they'd been broken up for sixty years, he was still HIS Aspen, HIS Bryan. With each second he listened to the sound of their kisses he got madder and madder and when he finally heard a soft moan from Cress, that was it!

"Well well well, what have we here?" He stood quickly and lit the room candles with a swiftly sung spell. "Fooling around in another person's house, on THEIR futon?! Think of my cleaning bills...women are so bloody messy." Rio strode into the center of the room, arms crossed over his well muscled chest. He delited in the look of total embarrassment that crossed the young woman's face as she tried to pull her nightshirt down over her pert behind before he could see. "Don't bother sweetpea, I have no interest in the bodies of women...and y'know, I didn't think Aspen did either, until recently when you showed up. I wonder...is there something I should know about you? Are you a drag queen? Maybe you bein' an alien, you have certain other 'attributes' that men of my persuasion might find amusing." He snarled nastily at her.

"Shut your trap Rio." Bryan was sitting by now, shaking his spiked pink hair into place. "You leave her alone, she's done nothing to you. If you've got a problem, it's with me, and you'd better spit it out NOW. We're facing berserker's tomorrow incase you've forgotten. It might be your last chance to tell me." His focused his old friend in his glowing green eyes, eyes that were slanted just a little like a fox. When he was mad, Aspen did have the sneaky look of a fox on the hunt, something many people found rather alluring.

He was right, it was time to get some things out of the closet, so to speak.

NEXT: It gets curvy...

Last edited by BunELovecraft on Sat Jun 12, 2004 4:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.

http://www.onehouraxis.comThere is no emotion; there is peace.
There is no ignorance; there is knowledge.
There is no passion; there is serenity.
There is no death; there is the Force.

By now Cress had hidden behind Bryan, her fingers digging into his shoulders quite hard though he didn't seem to mind. It was a bit of a stalemate with Rio and Bryan both giving each other the evil eye. At last Rio spoke, fiddling with the gold tie at the waist of his silk workout pants.

"Aspen"
"Bryan."
"Whatever! We've both changed over the years. Once you left, I spent all my time studying to be a cleric, I went to all the milk and honey services, I worked out all the time, and concentrated on bein' the best cleric I could since that seemed to be the only thing I could control in life. I couldn't stop my best friend from leaving so I had to work on something else so I wouldn't feel like it was my fault that I drove you away."
Bryan was staring at him with one eye arched all the way up to his hairline, leaning on one muscular arm. He'd really buffed up quite a bit from workin' on cars and liftin' engins and what not, he wasn't as spindly as Rio remembered him, or thought he'd turn out.

"Yeah you'ved changed to. You may have gotten gorgess on the outside...but from what I can tell, that's only skin deep. Rio you've turned into a real bitch." The half kitsune's voice was cold as a winter morning. "When I first got here I thought we could patch things up, maybe keep in touch...but after the shit you've pulled..." He stood slowly, hands resting on narrow hips. "We're helping you with your berserker problem, then Cress and I are returning to Eidios, and hopefully...you'll see the error of your ways and stop bein' so bloody harsh all the time! You're worse than my dad!! If bein' a Holy Sword turns you into a psychotic, evil, 'the ends not the means', snide, bitchy, bastard then I don't wanna be one."

Rio was shocked; Bryan had NEVER spoken like that to him. "Well..I..."
"And another thing, nobody, and I mean nobody, raises a hand to Cress. She's my woman you got it?" By now Bryan was nose to nose with Rio, poking him hard in the chest with one finger. "If we didn't have a history I'd have kicked you ass right then and there in the warehouse when you forced her to look at those corpses."

"It was just a restraining arm hold, she didn't get hurt..uh much. Her head didn't hit the gourney THAT hard, I mean really...it was just a split lip and a bruise. That damn alien can heal anything you throw at her anyway."
"I don't care if she's an alien, or an elf, or a bloody troll; I love her and she's under my protection you got that?" Bryan lowered his voice and Rio thought he sounded just like Elhaz in accent and tone "And if you ever touch her again....I'll kill you. Friends or no friends. Understood, Mr. Novalight?"

"Understood...Mr...Nightstalker." Rio looked away, he couldn't stand to see that hard and cold expression. Bryan had no feelings for him anymore, it was very much over. Thanks to his abuse of Cress earlier in order to convince her to go along with his plans, they weren't even friends now. "But, don't forget our happy times together. Even if you hate me now, the past was good wasn't it? We cared about each other then didn't we?"

"Yes, the past was good. Too bad things had to be this way. But that's over now, things are over and done. That part of you that I loved is dead and all that's left is a pretty shell with a hollow center." BAM. That struck home and Rio felt tears welling up in his eyes. Quickly he turned his back on them and rushed to the door, covering his mouth with one hand.

The door slammed behind him and Bryan let out a sigh. He felt like shit now; maybe he was the mean one. Even Cress was in shock.
"Whoa, now THAT was harsh. Bryan promise you'll never say shit like that to me ok? That was like...." Cress shuddered and blinked in shock "like totally uncalled for dude. He was your friend..."

"Cress...you should probably know..that he was more than that. That's why it bothers me so much. You er, get more attached to someone that you've fooled around with than with just a friend." he expected Cress to start crying again or run out, but this time she just sat there, petting the velvet edge of the comforter she was half under. At first she didn't say anything and then he heard her soft footfalls behind him."

"I think earlier that fact would have bothered me, but now I know that the past doesn't matter." The petite Shikkari girl stood infront of him and took his hands in her own, pulling them close against her breast. "It's the future that we can change. So lets make the future better...just you and me." Her bluegreen eyes sparkled in the dim candlelight of the room as she looked up at him. "And I'll make sure you don't turn into a psychotic, evil, hollow, uber jerk, if you do the same thing for me ok?"

Bryan blinked, then chuckled and pulled her close, kissing the top of her head. Cress's hair still smelled like the blueberry shampoo she liked...even after she'd been sitting out in the rain by the highway for a few hours. "Ok, it's a deal."
"But uh, I'm a glutton for punishment. So, what all went on with you and Rio in the past?"
"Well....lets go back to bed and I'll tell you." Bryan said softly with a sigh. "I met him when I was 12. Just 12 which would be like toddler years for Elves. We were both at the same temple....."

Next: what really went on

http://www.onehouraxis.comThere is no emotion; there is peace.
There is no ignorance; there is knowledge.
There is no passion; there is serenity.
There is no death; there is the Force.